IDSC
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I think we'd need more info about where you applied, what department(s) etc. before we could provide constructive input. Rankings are quite subjective, but of course there's a lot of competition at the top, and there's a general consensus that Universities in the top 25 are better than 75-100. From what I saw, business PhDs in the US are basically fully-funded from anywhere that's really worth getting a degree (if your intention is to remain in academia). All of the offers I had (ranging from T10 to T50 schools) included very livable funding packages.
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Concurrent PhDs in 2 countries and 2 universities
IDSC replied to corporateguy's topic in PhD in Business
There's no way this will turn out well. Doing one PhD is hard enough. Pour those extra hours (if there are any) into 1) self-care 2) research. Better to do one high quality thesis with some an additional paper or two instead of two watered down theses. -
I did engineering undergrad (but never used it because I joined the military after graduation). Then I did an MBA and worked in marketing for three years before joining a PhD program. Take this with a grain of salt, but your profile doesn't look particularly competitive to me at this point. I appreciate your point about not being the most "book smart" person but making up for it with intellectual drive, but admissions committees are going to point out that it's not really reflected in your grades. If you're going to make up for it (which is totally possible, but a stretch with a 650 GMAT) you've got to have a super compelling statement of purpose and research question. What do you want to research, and why? Why is that question interesting, important, and why don't we know the answer already? You don't have to have a dissertation topic nailed down but you have to demonstrate your intellectual curiosity. Faculty are looking for students who will be good students but will also be productive research partners both during the PhD program (i.e. an assistant professor who is going to mentor you is going to want to get some publications to help their numbers for tenure) and hopefully for a little while beyond. I don't think Supply Chain will be less competitive than strategy (my spouse is a supply chain/operations PhD candidate). The program is math-heavy and they're going to want top grades for someone coming out of industrial engineering. I totally get not being thrilled with your undergrad degree. Before you commit to doing a PhD, spend some time in the real world to see if what you really want. It will also give you a chance to find out what you're passionate about and what unsolved problems you want to research. In the hard sciences, I totally get going right from undergrad to the PhD (especially if you're already in a lab or doing research). In your case, as in mine, there's not a compelling reason to do the PhD right away. I'm a MUCH better candidate as a result of my work experience. You mentioned that you're interested in Strategy. What about strategy is fascinating to you? Corporate social responsibility? Outsourcing? Lobbying efforts? My recommendation is to spend some time thinking about what really interests you, and consider pursuing a job there for at least a couple years. By all means, spend time improving your profile (study for the GMAT, try to get a position as a research assistant, etc). I'd also echo other commentators who have mentioned that management consulting is probably not the way I'd go as a first job out the gate. I think you'd not get an appreciation for the minutiae of corporate operations that often dictate the pace of progress; and to me it feels a little presumptuous for someone who has never worked anywhere to come in as a consultant to tell other businesses how to run things.
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Profile Evaluation: Organizational Behavior/ Human Resource Management
IDSC replied to hkbaloch's topic in PhD in Business
The GMAT score is going to be on the low side but not completely insurmountable. Even schools outside the top 20-30 have average GMATs in the 720ish range. More than anything, a compelling story about why you want to be a researcher, why your research will be interesting, and who you would work with will have to sell it. -
Quite a few schools have Econ PhDs on the strategy faculty. One example: Strategic Management & Entrepreneurship Department | Carlson School of Management
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The schools you were accepted to are not bad schools. There are "better" schools, yes, but how much impact will a year's worth of RA work have on your applications? I can't answer that question for you, but how much "new" is added to your resume? Is the Master's degree relevant to the field? If yes, then I think the RAship will have a much lower marginal impact. Overall, I would take one of the two offers. (Personally, I like Vancouver better than Rochester, and UBC is higher ranked, but research fit should be the primary factor). UBC has good PhD Placements, so the opportunity cost is a minimum of, say, $120k since you'll be forgoing at least a year of assistant prof salary (assuming you don't go into industry). If you have a guaranteed offer from UBC, I think the probability of having something BETTER next year is not worth forgoing this.
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I worked for 10 years (at associate, manager and director levels) before the PhD. Being successful in the PhD doesn't require practical business knowledge (though it helps). Most "business" books are garbage and won't help you in the PhD (and, I would argue, won't help most businesspeople). This summer should be about getting your LIFE and your MIND in the right place to be successful. I was coming into it after 10 years in the workforce, so I decided to take the summer to really get myself in the right place. You shouldn't be trying to do the work ahead of time (except maybe a little reading but that's a big maybe). A few things that worked for me: -If you will have to move, move early and get settled. (I left my job in early June and moved mid-June). -Get comfortable with R (if you can find what your program uses, that's fine, but R is free and if you learn R STATA is easy) or Python (CodeAcademy or Datacamp have great courses). You'll touch multiple languages (probably), so don't stress too much. If you've NEVER done any programming, I'd recommend starting with CodeAcademy's Python course. -Get your computer, automatic backup, etc all set up. -Install and get comfortable with Mendeley or Zotero (or any paper/citation management software). Get it syncing across all devices. -Load the freezer. My spouse (also doing a PhD after 10 years in workforce) and I started the semester with the freezer JAMMED full of crockpot meals we had cooked in July. Significantly reduced the cooking workload for first semester when you're trying to get your feet under you. -MarieKondo your life and house. Get things organized. -Get caught up on those things you keep putting off, like going to the dentist. -Relax. -Exercise. It's not a bad idea to devote an hour or so a day to reading to help you prepare. As I said before, I think most of the business books are a waste of time (as a prospective academic, especially, but also generally). Consider reading The Economist. This will give you a broad, generally insightful, look at many relevant topics. Maybe some of the popular press books like Thaler's Misbehaving, Khaneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, Angela Duckworth's Grit, etc. My ideas for research have come not so much from reading academic literature (of course, that's where you have to refine things, review what's been done before, explore known theory) but from more popular sources such as podcasts (Freakonomics), the news, and even science-fiction books. If the school offers a "Math Camp" to review calculus and statistics, go for it.
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Criteria like exams and first year/second year papers shouldn't really make a difference. The PhD is really hard, wherever you go. You'll rise to the occasion wherever you are. More important are 1) research and faculty fit 2) campus/city (you should live someplace that you like).
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I applied last year. They were on a bit of a later schedule than most schools but they moved quickly. I got an invite for an interview in Mid-March and an offer a couple days later.
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I scored 166V/164Q and got into Michigan, got to phone/skype interviews at Harvard and Cornell (but ultimately didn't get offers). GRE isn't everything. With your unique background, if you write a compelling SOP, they could definitely be interested in you. It's worth a shot. That said, if you're dead set on doing a PhD (I was...) apply widely. Nothing is guaranteed, because of how important fit is. Eg, in marketing, they might not be looking for consumer behavior candidates this year, etc.
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Re 2: I applied to about 12 schools. Something like 4 in top 10, about 4 in top 30, 3 in top 50, 1 in top 100. Bit of a shotgun approach but it worked for me. I was a bit of a nontraditional applicant (10 years work experience, no real experience in my field) and didn't have very recent, relevant research (eg, wasn't coming with recent research and a letter of recommendation from top faculty in my field) so I wasn't sure how it would play out for me. Re 3: Of course name recognition and UT-Dallas are heuristics, but the biggest things for me were research fit (ie, which specific faculty would I want to work with? Who is publishing research relevant to my interests) and faculty placements. Every school should tell you where they've placed graduates in the past ten years or so. Plenty of "top 50" schools have really strong placement records with every graduate landing a Top 50 Tenure Track appointment. If a Top 30 school is sending a handful of graduates to TT in Top 10 schools with everyone else landing in Top 30...that's a great sign. If the school is sending everyone to post-docs at mediocre places or 75%+ to industry, then you should be concerned (unless that's what you want to do).
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Without going into too much detail, I had about 10 years work experience but not really in a related field. Accepted to Michigan, Minnesota, GT, UNC and a few others. Rejected from Wharton, MIT, Harvard (got a phone interview at Harvard).
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Your GRE quant score should be enough to get you in the door, but you could try to retake. My list was similar to yours and I had the same GRE score. Got into two of those schools, rejected by three (got an interview at one of the ones that rejected). You should also look at Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, and Arizona State, to name a few. But your list looks really good.
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Can't speak for every school, but most seem to be pretty math heavy the first few years (stats, econ, etc). If you're shooting for a T50 program, I think you should definitely work to get the quant score up. You could also try taking the GRE and see if you do better percentile-wise on that one. But that score would be a good bit below average at most good schools...not that you couldn't get in (of course, plenty of people are below the average) but it is one more bump in the road.
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What you've shared puts you in the zone for top 10 schools, should get you to the Skype interview round if you have a good statement of purpose.
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So 690 doesn’t rule you out but it will likely be below average compared to the competition. The biggest thing you’ll really need to think about is why you want to do a PhD...if the answer is not “do research” you should reconsider. Not to be a jerk, but... If teaching is your passion, consider trying to teach as a lecturer or adjunct for a semester at a school near you; you can usually do this without a PhD at smaller school.
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PhD in Accounting - How proactive should you be in outreaching to schools
IDSC replied to EUU's topic in PhD in Business
I think it can go either way. I reached out to just about every school I was applying to, usually just one or two professors I might want to work with, and always with legitimate questions about research focus, etc. most schools responded and all were positive; nobody said “go through proper channels.” Most conversations were over email but a few folks suggested phone calls. My take is that it’s not a bad idea, but not necessary. The reasons to do it are 1) get more info and 2) build recognition for your name before the official review round when your name is one on the list. The reason not to do it is that if you are perceived as annoying or petulant you could bias the committee against you. If a school says not to (I think Wharton did?), I didn’t. For what it’s worth, I got into some schools where I didn’t reach out and got rejected by a program where I had nice back and forth emails and phone calls with two folks. But most of the places I reached out to gave me offers, and I think it helped me (being a “non traditional” applicant). I guess to sum up: some people will, some people won’t, if the school says not to don’t, it’s not required, it may help just a hair, do it if you think you will benefit from getting the answer to a question, don’t email to say, “just wanted to introduce myself.” -
I applied to programs after about 10 years of working. For each school, I tried to include a grad school prof (someone who I'd done a research project with), an undergrad prof (again, research advisor or someone I TA'd for), and an employer LOR. That worked for me. You want someone who will write the strongest letter about why you'll be a successful researcher and why you bring something unique to the table. If your boss can talk about how you're talented with modeling in R/SAS/SPSS/Tableau/whatever software and can do insightful analysis, that will probably be a benefit to your application. EDIT: Regarding work experience in your statement of purpose and interviews: I was coached by two of my grad professors about how to pitch my work experience. Unlike a job interview where you're talking about all of your accomplishments to land the next promotion, the only reason work matters here is why it's relevant to you being a good researcher. The "hardest" big accomplishments (that were on my CV as bullets) went unmentioned and the anecdotes that I used to connect the dots were either stories explaining why I wanted to be an academic or experiences that I had that I felt would make up for my potentially short list of academic research experience to date. A good portion of your cohort-mates will have no work experience; over time, schools have learned that work experience does not translate into success or failure in the PhD program so it's not an automatic positive or negative. It will be judged on its merit just like any other student's experiences. Of course, this is just my opinion informed by my experience and conversations with people around me.
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The key thing now (based on where we are in time with upcoming application deadlines) is to be crystal clear in your statement of purpose about why marketing and why a particular focus within marketing. I applied to a number of Marketing and Strategy programs and the statements of purpose that I submitted to a marketing vs strategy program were quite a bit different. Read the type of research that professors in that area at that school are producing, and imagine they told you, "This is the kind of work we do here, is that what you want to do? Convince me."
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Just my opinion (based on my direct observation of n=2 cases), but 720 is high enough that it'll get your application through the first round at just about any school, including Ivy League and top 10 schools. After that it may get a glance or two, but your academic record will speak more to your quant ability (for better or worse) than GMAT score. I would devote the time that you would otherwise spend studying to retake the GMAT on your statements of purpose, meeting with professors to evaluate your statement of purpose, studying for your current classes, and relaxing.